Mexico entered its Copa América contest against Venezuela in Los Angeles on Wednesday having never lost a match against that opponent in this tournament. El Tri out-shot Venezuela 17 (with six shots on goal) to 10 (with two shots on goal). Yet when the final whistle sounded, the scoreboard read Venezuela 1, Mexico 0, with the only goal coming via Salomon Rondón's penalty kick in the 57th minute.
Mexico had plenty of chances to equalize, including a penalty kick of its own in the 87th minute, but Orbelín Pineda's weak attempt was saved by Venezuelan keeper Rafael Romo.
It's the latest embarrassing result in a multi-year stretch full of them for Mexico — including a seven-match windless streak against archrival United States — but is there a silver lining for El Tri heading into a win-or-go-home match against Ecuador on Sunday? Jimmy Conrad argued there was when joining Melissa Ortiz and Chris "The Bear" Fallica on FOX Soccer Now.
"What's good for Mexico is they know what they need to do [Sunday]," Conrad said. "Goal differential is not on their side. Ecuador has a better goal difference, so a draw favors them. Mexico has to go and win. And I think if you play with that type of purpose and that understanding that this is what has to happen — it's basically a knockout round game before you get into the knockout rounds."
Ortiz believes that urgency is something Mexico has mostly lacked in their first two Copa América group stage games.
"You need to be clinical, and that's something that Mexico just hasn't done time and time again," Ortiz said. "And it seems like they're waiting for the last 15 minutes to start being active being dangerous [and] playing with urgency. They did in [their opening] game against Jamaica that
FIFA
Sporting
security
stage
UPS
Fox
Equality
loss
El Tri
Salomon Rondon